Proceed, Sergeant Lamb Read online

  ‘That, Sir,’ I replied, ‘is a calumny which has become hereditary to historians. The reverse is the case: during a matter of twenty reigns that have succeeded the first submission of the Irish princes, the fidelity of Ireland to the Kings of England has been very seldom interrupted. Irish soldiers have often been brought over to England to protect their sovereigns against the insurrections of British rebels. During the same period above thirty civil wars, greater or less, raged within the larger island—four British monarchs were dethroned, three murdered.’

  He changed his tack: ‘Well, if you are right and I have been misinformed, then on the contrary I am astonished that the unrelenting cruelties and misrule of the British governors have not goaded you into disaffection: for my part, I would never live upon any but free American soil.’

  I replied, as to this, that I suspected the political well-being of a country that cast out its Tories, equally with that of a country that hanged its Whigs. But I contented him by saying that there were many customs and inclinations in America that pleased me, and that might with profit be transplanted into Ireland: for example, the hospitality and mutual assistance afforded to one another by the back-country people, and the high value set upon education. Yet I swore I would never turn my back upon the land of my birth, and would labour on my return to do all in my power to better its condition in the light of my novel experiences—as a loyal subject of the King.

  It was not until some months later that I received news that my father had deceased in Dublin almost on the very day of this conversation, in poverty and debt, and in great grief at a report that had reached him of my death in the fighting at Saratoga. He died, however, at a time when Irish affairs were beginning at last to right themselves. It will be remembered how, at the close of this same year, King George was graciously pleased to consider the demands of my fellow-countrymen, to which on the 4th of November (Dutch William’s birthday) they called his attention with loyal if extraordinary manifestations. On that day forty thousand Irish Volunteers, who had been enrolled to repel the raids on our coasts threatened by the American privateer captain, Paul Jones, paraded before King William’s statue on College Green in Dublin City; firing volleys into the air, waving flags and trailing cannon to which were tied placards inscribed, ‘Free Trade or This!’ The display had immediate effect. In December, Resolutions were adopted in the Parliament at Westminster, granting to us Irish the free export of our products and manufactures, and privileges in trading with British colonies equal to those enjoyed by the merchants of England and Scotland.

  At Brookfield I procured admission to the jail with little difficulty, by telling the turnkey that the Methodist minister who was Chaplain to the prisoners would know that I was expected to arrive. The Chaplain was fetched and brought me to the cell, where I was greeted by Buchanan and Brooks in such sanctified phrases that I was perfectly astonished. Both implored my pardon, which I readily gave, for the frauds, deceits and cruelties that they had practised upon me—some of which I had no knowledge of, while others I had forgotten—and attempted forthwith to convert me to their own religious ecstasy. Brooks before his confinement had not only been notoriously profane but almost illiterate; yet since his confinement he had attended so much to a devout perusal of the Holy Scriptures that he could now read them with facility, explain them to his unhappy cell-mates in an edifying manner and even select the chapters most appropriate to their sad condition.

  The day of execution, which was that following my arrival, was a severe trial for me. I wished to humour the poor fellows by letting them suppose that they had affected my conversion; but honesty forbade. It was not that I was a disbeliever, or that I was addicted to evil courses—for I now lived, of necessity almost, a regular and decent life—but that to profess a change of heart would mean abandoning all hope of resuming my connexion with Kate Harlowe and our child. For this still remained with me the sweetest dream of all and altogether ineradicable from my fancy.

  Mrs. Spooner, the murderess, was to die on the same day, but indulged loud hopes of escaping condign punishment. She pleaded pregnancy as an argument for being respited, and seemed impenitent a good deal. Her Tory opinions, however, fastened the noose tightly about her throat, and sealed the fate of her unborn child. The gallows were fixed at a distance of two miles from the jail and a holiday crowd of sightseers attended; who were punished for their idle curiosity by a great storm of thunder, followed with copious rain, that all of a sudden broke upon them from a fine and serene sky and drenched them to the bone. Mrs. Spooner met her end with hysterical screaming and fierce vituperations; but Buchanan and Brooks remained true to their new-found convictions and died with the name of Jesus upon their lips.

  I must add one last note to my account of this ignominious catastrophe. Buchanan’s widow, known as ‘Terrible Annie’, who had been Mortal Harry’s widow before, and that of a drummer in the Thirty-Third even before that, was not sorry when the news of his death reached her at Montreal. She was a woman with the same mysterious power as the American hen-blackbird, or grackle, of attracting new mates to console her in her frequent widowhood. Her fourth husband was a quartermaster-sergeant of the Forty-Seventh Regiment, and passed for the greatest rogue in the whole Service.

  CHAPTER IV

  Early in November 1778, when we had already, by considerable labour and thought, improved our slight huts so as to make them snug enough to shelter us through another severe New English winter, we were given our route for the back country of Virginia. Our destination was said to be Charlotteville, which lay near eight hundred miles away. The object was that the Southern States should bear their share of the expense of maintaining us, especially now that we were without pay from our own authorities; also, that we should be moved beyond reach of rescue. We were in great distress for want of money to undertake this march, and our commanding officers met to consult upon a means of procuring some. General Burgoyne had returned to England on parole, and General Phillips, who now commanded, spoke very warmly on the subject of our want of cash, protesting his inability to effect anything: ‘Good God, my lords and gentlemen, what would you have me do? I cannot make money. I wish to Heaven you could slit me into paper dollars—I would cheerfully submit for the good of the troops.’ However, the Paymaster somehow succeeded in obtaining enough currency to enable us to march, something less than two hundred pounds sterling in value but an enormous mass of paper; and this was distributed to the regiments. Our chief remaining distress was the raggedness of our jackets and breeches. Unfortunately, a ship that arrived at Boston under a flag of truce, with the uniform clothing long overdue to us, came just too late for its distribution to us. The march could not be postponed. However, we obtained some shoes, linen and blankets and on November 10th said good-bye to the pen. We resented having been tricked into clearing so many acres of forest-land and building enough good huts to accommodate several American families; for this would add greatly to the wealth of the proprietor without any benefit accruing to ourselves. However, we did not in revenge burn down our barracks, lest the route be countermanded.

  From Rutland we marched south-east at about twenty-five miles every day, under guard of a regiment of Pennsylvanian Germans, and passed the Connecticut River at Endfield. This stage of the journey had little novelty for us, since we had made our way across the same part of Massachusetts, though a little to the north, a year before during our journey into captivity. Yet it was interesting to me to note the different degrees of civilization and prosperity attained in this region or that through which we passed. These were announced by the several sorts of fences that enclosed, first, the cleared land, where all was level; next, the half-cleared, where tree-stumps remained among the corn-stubble; and lastly, the uncleared, where the oaks and other hard timber were as yet only girdled and left to the wind for felling. The rudest sort of fence was a tangle of the light branches of trees; the next rudest was the Virginian fence, made by trunks of trees laid one upon the other at an obtuse angle, in
a zigzag manner—a drunken man hereabouts was said to ‘make Virginian fences’ when he tacked to and fro along a road; then came the post and rail fence; and when a farmer had achieved so settled a dominion that he could go to the trouble of clearing his land of stones, he piled them up to form a wall with a ramp of earth, into which he drove palings of split timber—but this was very rare to see.

  We were on the whole extremely fortunate in the weather, which was temperate and clear, though the frosts were severe during the nights when we bivouacked in the dismal fir woods, seeking shelter in the crevices of the rocks; and the rutted roads crackled with ice every morning. ‘I swear God has turned Tory,’ a surly old dame cried, looking angrily up at the blue skies as we marched past her door. General Washington had been considerate enough to supply wagons for our women and children, of whom there were about two hundred with us.

  Our route now lay through the northern borders of Connecticut, but most of the so-called townships (as Endfield, Suffield and Sunbury, which we passed in this order) were not regular towns: each consisted of one or two hundred scattered farms belonging to a single corporation that sent a member to the State Assembly. A meeting-house or church, with perhaps an inn and one or two houses, marked the centre of this township, but often the church stood singly. We observed that the interior of many houses that we passed was only half finished. The man who cleared the land and constructed the house from the felled trees had usually completed only one half of it and left the other a mere shell (though with roof and glazed windows complete) to be boarded and furnished within by his son when he took a wife. We were pleased by the swarms of healthy children who rushed out of every house on our route, and by the handsomeness of the women who passed us on the road, often riding alone on horseback or driving their own carriages. The weather continuing fine, they were dressed in white aprons, calico gowns and elegant hats. We learned that though every man was a farmer, most men also plied some mechanical trade, as tanner, sawyer, whitesmith, blacksmith, physician or tooth-drawer. Besides, every woman was mistress of so many domestic arts, including spinning, weaving of woollens and linsey-woollens, broom and basket-making—in which labours she was assisted by her children—that the country was in a manner independent of the industry of cities.

  We marched through a fertile river-valley at New Hartford, where were abundance of geese and turkey-birds, and hogs of a prodigious size wearing around their necks triangular wooden collars which prevented them from breaking the fences of the cultivated fields. Horses and cattle wore a similar contrivance. There was a scent of cider-making in the air, or perhaps they were distilling cider into apple-jack spirits.

  At the small town of Sharon some of us were allowed by a woman to inspect an exceedingly ingenious mill invented by one Joel Harvey, for which he was awarded twenty pounds by the American Society of Arts and Sciences. One water-wheel set a whole complicated machinery in motion for threshing, winnowing, grinding and bolting wheat; and for simultaneously beating and dressing hemp and flax. But the two branches could be disconnected if necessary, and only one operation maintained.

  Now we had reached the confines of the State of Connecticut and were approaching Hudson’s River in the State of New York. The time had therefore arrived for putting into effect a daring resolution that I had formed so soon as news reached us of our proposed transplantation to Virginia: I would quit the column of march and make an escapade to General Clinton’s army in New York! In this venture the river itself would be my guide to safety, nor would I need to follow it more than seventy miles downstream from the point where our army was intended to cross over. I concluded that it would be much more agreeable, and indeed less dangerous, to have companions in my flight and therefore considered which of them I should approach.

  I naturally first sounded Terry Reeves, as the most courageous and resourceful man in the Regiment, but he would not hear of the attempt. He asked, was I unaware that our officers (fearful of the regiments’ being, at our eventual return to Europe, reduced to mere skeletons) had issued orders that any soldier absent from his corps for more than four-and-twenty hours should be returned as a deserter, and if brought back again by the American civil or military power, should be flogged without mercy? I replied that I was not unaware of this, but that the hope of striking another blow for my King and Country weighed more with me than any such orders. I could not convince Terry, and went away sadly. Smutchy Steel, however, now an excellent soldier, showed himself eager to accompany me. He said that, much as he loved Terry, he could not be sorry that he was not to be one of us: for Terry brought bad luck on himself and his companions in any venture, and never seemed to escape some injury—which was true enough. He recommended as our third companion Richard Harlowe, who had that very morning expressed a wish to ‘make a run for it’. Smutchy reminded me that Harlowe was acquainted with the French and German languages, which would perhaps be of great service to us—especially the German, when it came to outwitting our guards. There were few companions whom I would have selected with less eagerness than Harlowe, but what Smutchy had observed about the usefulness to us of foreign languages struck me as very true; nor was anyone else of our acquaintance so gifted. ‘Very well,’ I said to Smutchy, ‘let it be Harlowe, for beggars cannot be choosers. But do you speak to him yourself on my behalf. I have no wish to approach him directly.’

  Smutchy presently reported that Richard Harlowe was ready to join our company. We were then at a place named Nine Partners, about forty miles to the north-west of the place where we now learned we were to cross. Smutchy obtained from Jane Crumer, who borrowed it from one of the soldiers’ wives, an almanack for the current year ‘being the second after Leap Year and second of American Independence, calculated for the meridian of Boston by Daniel George.’ He handed me the book, saying with satisfaction: ‘There is good news for us here.’

  I opened at random and, to cod him, began to read a passage upon how to rear turkeys successfully: ‘Plunge the chick into a vessel of water, the very hour if possible, at least the very day it is hatched, forcing it to swallow one whole peppercorn, after which return it to the mother, &c.’

  ‘No, not that,’ he protested.

  I read again: ‘The Foreign Vintage rival’d by the Gardens of America: Or, a Receipt to make WINE as good as most that is imported, and much cheaper. To a Gallon of Water, add a Gallon of Currants—’

  ‘No, no,’ he protested again rather testily.

  I read further: ‘The highest price is given at the Printing Office in Newbury Port, for all sorts of Linen and Cotton RAGS—the smallest pieces are (in proportion to their bigness) as serviceable as large. Good WRITING-PAPER will be given in exchange, at a very low price, if wanted’—‘why, Smutchy, have you a mind to sell your old shirt for a sheet of foolscap?’

  He tore the book from my hands. ‘Now, don’t be so provoking, Sergeant Gerry,’ he said. ‘Read here where the page is turned down. There’s a new moon in two days’ time, November 18th, at ten o’clock at night; and there the coming weather is forecasted also.’

  Indeed, for all my jesting, it was a matter of awful concern to us both what aspect the Heavens would wear for our flight. So at last I consented to read the prophecy for the next five days: flying clouds and strong south winds which bear down all before them, and perhaps some rain or snow. MORE FOUL WEATHER. ‘Now, I wonder,’ says I, laughing, ‘is that the truth or just another smart Yankee trick to overreach us?’

  ‘Neighbour Daniel George wouldn’t dare deceive his public with regard to the moon,’ was Smutchy’s surmise, ‘and I expect he knows the usual run of the weather in these parts. Well, then, the moon will not trouble us, being too young. As for the rain or snow, let it be rain and the more rain the better, for the sake of the powder in the rebels’ priming-pans, and of the darkness. Faith, let it be as dark as the inside of a poacher’s dog, I don’t care. As for the strong south wind, that same will blow in our faces and bring us news of danger the sooner. God save Great Daniel Geor
ge, I say.’

  The country between Nine Partners and the river was well cultivated, and the inhabitants were for the most part Dutch. All this country had formerly belonged to the Dutch Republic which, I believe, exchanged it with the King of England for the spice-lands of Surinam. A few of our officers were well bitten by the Dutch landlord where they lodged at Opel, or Hopewell, our next stage. He and his family behaved very civilly and attentively to them and would scarcely permit them to pay for what they had consumed. The officers, thereby concluding that the household were Loyalists, opened their hearts and observed that it was a great shame that British officers should be put to such expense, which ought to fall upon Congress. The landlord then ran from the room and made out an enormous bill, which he insisted upon being paid. The officers, declaring it to be exorbitant in every particular and three times what had been agreed, this Dutchman said: ‘Yes, gentlemen, but I had thought that Congress were to defray all your expenses, and did not wish to be severe upon them. Now that I know that it will fall upon you, I can’t take a farthing less than this bill.’ They were compelled to discharge it.

  It was on November 17th, from our bivouacs in a wood a few miles beyond Hopewell (a name of good omen) that we made our attempt to regain our freedom, at breakfast-time on the morning of our departure. The Army was to cross Hudson’s River that afternoon; and General Washington himself would be present to see it go by. Richard Harlowe had cultivated the acquaintance of a German corporal of the guard and now obtained permission from him to go to a house a hundred yards beyond the line of sentries, in order, he said, to buy a few eggs. He promised two eggs to the Corporal. After being gone for about three minutes, he came back (as I had suggested to him) as if to reassure the German that he contemplated no desertion. His account was that the farmer was sawing wood and would not give his wife the key of the hen-house, which he kept locked against the depredations of the soldiery, until he had finished his daily stent. This task would take him a good hour, which was longer than we could afford to wait; but it could be shortened if two or three British soldiers could be found to help him with it. The Corporal believed this story, because the sound of a saw could be heard proceeding from the farm; and Harlowe, with his consent, then called upon us to bear a hand. We agreed with feigned unwillingness.